Endurance

Prologue

I m sitting at the head of my dining room table at home in Houston, finishing dinner with my family: my longtime girlfriend, Amiko; my daughters, Samantha and Charlotte; my twin brother, Mark; his wife, Gabby; his daughter, Claudia; our father, Richie; and Amiko s son, Corbin. It s a simple thing, sitting at a table and eating a meal with those you love, and many people do it every day without giving it much thought. For me, it s something I ve been dreaming of for almost a year. I contemplated what it would be like to eat this meal so many times, now that I m finally here, it doesn t seem entirely real. The faces of the people I love that I haven t seen for so long, the chatter of many people talking together, the clink of silverware, the swish of wine in a glass these are all unfamiliar. Even the sensation of gravity holding me in my chair feels strange, and every time I put a glass or fork down on the table there s a part of my mind that is looking for a dot of Velcro or a strip of duct tape to hold it in place. I ve been back on Earth for forty-eight hours.

I push back from the table and struggle to stand up, feeling like an old man getting out of a recliner.

Stick a fork in me, I m done, I announce. Everyone laughs and encourages me to go and get some rest. I start the journey to my bedroom: about twenty steps from the chair to the bed. On the third step, the floor seems to lurch under me, and I stumble into a planter. Of course it wasn t the floor it was my vestibular system trying to readjust to Earth s gravity. I m getting used to walking again.

That s the first time I ve seen you stumble, Mark says. You re doing pretty good. He knows from personal experience what it s like to come back to gravity after having been in space. As I walk by Samantha, I put my hand on her shoulder and she smiles up at me.

I make it to my bedroom without incident and close the door behind me. Every part of my body hurts. All of my joints and all

SCOTT KELLY is a former military fighter pilot and test pilot, an engineer, a retired astronaut, and a retired U.S. Navy captain. A veteran of four space flights, Kelly commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on three expeditions and was a member of the yearlong mission to the ISS. During the Year in Space mission, he set records for the total accumulated number of days spent in space and for the single longest space mission by an American astronaut. He lives in Houston, Texas.

Captivating, charming . . . . [Kelly] pulls back the curtain separating the myth of the astronaut from its human realities. . . . It is easy to imagine future generations of explorers and daredevils harnessing the lessons and truths within the pages of Endurance as the blueprints for their own trips into the unknown. Jaroslav Kalfar, The New York Times Book Review

[Endurance] is a memoir of the right stuff that will hypnotize any space geek. The Wall Street Journal

Kelly brings life in space alive the wonder and awe of it, and also the jagged edges, the rough parts of living in confined quarters in an alien element, far from everything familiar and beloved. . . . Endurance, with its honest, gritty descriptions of an unimaginable life, a year off Earth, is as close as most readers will come to making that voyage themselves. The Financial Times

Kelly s account is insightful, at times humorous, heart-tugging at others. And it s inspiring enough to change the life of some lost kid, just like The Right Stuff did for him. USA Today

For space junkies, it s absolutely required reading. . . . We feel as though we re right there with him. A great book. Booklist

Scott Kelly s saga is a deeply absorbing and vivid look at a year in space and the many trials and rigors of living weightless inside a football field-sized machine traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. But Endurance satisfies far more than the reader s technological curiosities; it is replete with humor, thrills, surreal details, and recurring moments of ordinary humanity that turn Kelly s tale into a loving tribute to the pioneering individuals who risk all to shepherd man s exploration of the vast beyond.   Khaled Hosseini, author of And the Mountains Echoed

Read this book and you will believe in our American future, thrill at our human potential, and laugh at the absurdities of life.  Endurance is about excellence and perspective, a memorable read.